Air Marshal Sir John Rowlands

12:01AM BST 07 Jun 2006

Air Marshal Sir John Rowlands, who died on Sunday aged 90, was awarded the George Cross for his courage in bomb disposal over a period of more than two years.

By the end of the Second World War, RAF bomb disposal personnel had dealt with some 175,000 weapons of British, Allied and enemy origin in Britain and Europe. The BD squads were in the front line of a battle between the British and German scientists, and sometimes enormous risks had to be taken in order to provide the information on which the British could base their strategy for handling unexploded bombs. In the first year of the war the life expectancy of a BD officer was about 10 weeks.

In 1940 Flying Officer Rowlands was posted to the Air Ministry to join T Arm 4, the branch of the RAF responsible for bomb disposal policy. In April the next year an RAF BD squad reported the discovery of an unexploded bomb with some unusual features.

Certain members of the Air Ministry staff were deployed operationally from time to time on some of the more difficult and hazardous tasks, and Rowlands was sent to take charge.

The bomb was at a depth of about six feet. It had a Type 17 delayed-action fuse at the nose end which was governed by a clockwork mechanism set to ignite at a pre-determined moment within a period of 72 hours. In the rear end there was a Type 50 anti-handling device. A movement of less than a millimetre would be enough to activate the trembler-switch and ignite the fuse.

Related Articles

Without disturbing the bomb, Rowlands inserted a solution of alcohol, benzene and salt - known as a Liquid Fuel Discharger - into the 50 fuse. After the required waiting period of 30 minutes the fuse was neutralised. The 17 fuse was discharged in the same way.

A magnetic clock-stopper, known as "Kim", was then applied to the 17 clockwork fuse. BD personnel withdrew to a safe distance and the bomb was given a tug, which proved that the 50 fuse was inert. The bomb, fitted with the clock-stopper and a microphone, was then loaded on to a lorry and driven to a specially designated area where the explosive could be steamed out.

The steam steriliser was designed to cut a hole in the top of the bomb casing and emulsify the explosive before forcing it out under pressure. On the way frequent stops were made to ensure that the clock in the 17 fuse had not re-started. After the steaming-out operation, the bomb was finally rendered harmless.

On June 19 1943, at 9pm, the duty officer at the Air Ministry was informed that there had been a serious explosion at the RAF station at Snaith, in Yorkshire. Eighteen men were missing. A bomb in a large ammunition dump had accidentally detonated, damaging large numbers of incendiary and high explosive bombs. Many of these were already fully fused for operational use.

Rowlands was visiting another RAF station nearby at the time and hurried to Snaith. A reconnaissance of the site showed a number of dead and no survivors, and no firm figures could be given of the number of bombs involved or of those that had detonated.

What was certain was that some were fitted with delayed-action fuses and others with anti-disturbance devices. Many incendiaries had burnt, and the heat from the fire was intense; there was a constant danger from exploding ammunition.

Rowlands allowed a few days to elapse to provide a safety period. He and his colleagues then started to clear the area. A large number of bombs were dealt with. Some fuses were removed by remote control; others, more seriously damaged, had to be neutralised where they lay. By June 29 the work was finished.

The citation for his George Cross declared: "For over two years, Wing Commander Rowlands has been employed on bomb-disposal duties and has repeatedly displayed the most conspicuous courage and unselfish devotion to duty in circumstances of great personal danger." He was invested with the GC by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on July 20 1945.

John Samuel Rowlands was born on September 23 1915 at Hawarden, in Flintshire, and educated at Hawarden Grammar School and the University of Wales, where he took a degree in Physics. He captained the university football side and was in the tennis team.

In 1939, at the outbreak of war, Rowlands joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. He did his armament engineering training at RAF Manby, in Lincolnshire, and his pilot training at Tern Hill.

From early 1940 to October 1943 Rowlands was with T Arm 4 (later re-designated 0.10 BD) at the Air Ministry, dealing with the organisation and direction of RAF bomb disposal. During this period he dealt with several hundred weapons of different kinds. His duties included dismantling and making safe new types of enemy weapons, and dealing with Allied weapons in crashed aircraft.

Rowlands also attended meetings of the Unexploded Bomb Committee. Inventions by civilian and military scientists were being produced very quickly in response to the challenge posed by the German weapons. The committee, chaired by Dr HJ Gough, the Director General of Scientific Research and Development, was formed to co-ordinate these developments.

In 1943 Rowlands was posted to Fort Halstead, in Kent, to attend the Advanced Armament Course. At the end of the course he became superintendent of fuse design at their Armament Design Department. In the next two years he travelled to North Africa, Italy and Germany, working just behind the Allied forces' front line, examining and reporting on German bombs and fuses.

Rowlands obtained a permanent commission in the RAF in 1945. Shortly after the end of the war, he attended an RAF staff college course at Haifa, in Palestine. On returning to England, he was posted to head an RAF team to participate in the development of the British atomic bomb.

He was in the High Explosive Research Department, also situated at Fort Halstead, and from 1947 to 1952 at the Atomic Warfare Research Establishment at Aldermaston.

In 1952 Rowlands attended the first British atomic tests in the Monte Bello Islands as the senior RAF officer. He had personally taken charge of the radioactive assembly of the bomb. Shortly afterwards, he commanded the first atomic weapons unit in Bomber Command, before being posted to a bomber station at RAF Binbrook. In 1958 he was promoted to group captain and returned to the Atomic Warfare Research Establishment to work on the H-bomb, remaining there as the senior RAF adviser until 1961.

Rowlands was then posted to the British Embassy in Washington as a specialist attaché on nuclear matters. In 1964, now an air commodore, he attended the Imperial Defence College course in London. The following year, and for the next three years, he directed the technical training of cadets at RAF Cranwell. While he was there, he visited the US Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs and Princeton University.

He was promoted to Air Vice Marshal in 1968 and appointed the first Director General of Training at the Air Ministry. Promoted to Air Marshal in 1970, he served for the following three years as AOC-in-C RAF Maintenance Command at Andover. He retired from the RAF in 1973.

From 1974 to 1980, Rowlands was assistant principal at Sheffield Polytechnic. For several years he was a consultant with the Civil Aviation Administration. He was a life vice-president of the Air Crew Association, and president of the Sheffield branch, to which he gave unceasing support.

A man of great modesty who never trumpeted his achievements, Rowlands retired to a village near Sheffield. His recreations were photography, tennis and motoring.

John Rowlands was appointed OBE in 1954 and KBE in 1971.

He married, in 1942, Constance Wight, who survives him with their two daughters.